The pickup today feature lets you direct customers to your website when they click on an ad that shows your local product. By directing customers to your website instead of your Google-hosted local storefront, you can manage and track your customers' entire experience.
This article helps you understand how the feature works and what’s required for your primary feed and website.
How it works
- A customer clicks a local inventory ad with distance annotation plus pickup availability text.
- Google passes a Business Profile store code where the item is available to the retailer.
- The retailer generates the store customized landing page for the clicked product.
- On the retailer’s website, the customer then has the option to buy or reserve the product online and pick it up at the store nearby.
You must direct customers to the store that Google passes in the URL generated by the customer's click, even if you can self-detect customers’ locations.
Step 1: Review website requirements
To be eligible for pickup today with a merchant hosted local storefront (full), your website must meet these requirements:
- Fulfill the merchant hosted local storefront (full) landing page and feed requirements.
- Be able to display a local storefront based on the store codes passed from your Business Profiles in order to populate store-specific pricing and availability on the product page.
- Display the option to pick up a product on your landing page or in your checkout flow. Note that the product’s local store availability must be clearly visible on only your product landing page.
- Display an item’s store pickup availability, either directly on the landing page, or by showing a store selector with the option to display store pickup availability. Note that the item's local store availability must be clearly visible on only your product landing page.
- Alternatively, store selection for pickup can occur in your checkout flow after a customer has added an item to their cart.
- An item's store pickup availability can be displayed after clicking on a link (for example, “check local availability”) or after submitting a postal code or address.
- After a customer clicks or inputs the required information, your site must display an item’s store pickup availability and the location of the local store.
- An item’s displayed store pickup availability must match the pickup SLA provided in your feed.
- The pickup availability must be shown before customers are required to enter their payment method.
Important: Pickup availability can be different from store local availability. To implement pickup today with merchant hosted local storefront (full), you're required to have the item’s store local availability clearly visible on your product landing page when the page opens, while the pickup availability for a selected store can be shown during the checkout flow.
- On your landing page, either display your store’s local product price, or ensure that local prices match online prices (if only online prices are displayed).
- Indicate a pickup fee (if a pickup fee will be charged).
- This may be displayed in your checkout flow alongside store selection.
- Provide an option to select other store locations for pickup.
- This may be displayed in your checkout flow alongside store selection.
- Allow customers to complete their order (for example, complete the purchase or reserve the item) on your website.
- Provide a pickup confirmation message when the order is ready (for example, by sending an email and SMS).
- Display store name and store location information on your landing page.
- Make sure the local information (such as store name, store location, local product price, and availability) is clearly visible when the page opens, without customer interaction. (This information should be visible upon loading the page, without requiring the page visitor to scroll.)
- The store name and city may represent the store location when the page first opens if the full store address is displayed when the customer clicks to view store location details, or change to other store locations.
- Make sure the local information (such as store name, store location, local product price, and availability) is clearly visible when the page opens, without customer interaction. (This information should be visible upon loading the page, without requiring the page visitor to scroll.)
Website recommendations
In addition to the website requirements above, we recommend the following:
- Show pickup cutoff time prior to adding the item to cart or at the checkout page.
- Customers should understand when the pickup will be based on the time they are placing the order (for example: “Orders must be placed by 4 p.m.”, or “Order today, pick up tonight”, and so on).
- Allow customers to view your fulfillment options before creating an account (for example, provide a “checkout as guest” option).
- Allow customers to view your fulfillment options before entering their address information.
Step 2: Update feed attributes
| Attribute | Optional or required? | Feed | Possible values |
Pickup method [pickup_method] |
Required Optional starting September 1, 2024 |
Primary feed or local product inventory feed |
|
Pickup SLA [pickup_sla] |
Required | Primary feed or local product inventory feed |
|
Link for merchant hosted local storefront [link_template] |
Required | Primary feed | URL parameter or URL path |
{store_code} ValueTrack parameter in link for merchant hosted local storefront [link_template] |
Required | Primary feed | URL parameter or URL path with ValueTrack parameter {store_code} |
Mobile link for merchant hosted local storefront [mobile_link_template] |
Optional | Primary feed | URL parameter or URL path |
Ads redirect [ads_redirect] |
Optional | Primary feed | URL parameter or URL path |
Add the pickup method and pickup SLA attributes to your feeds
If pickup today is available for all stores with the same SLA
When the same pickup today offering is available in all of your stores, add the required attributes to the appropriate items in your primary feed (for example, a customer can buy and pick up the XYZ television on the same day in any of your stores nationally).
When you submit pickup SLA [pickup_sla] in your primary feed you must set the maximum SLA for all your stores. This means that if a product has the SLA as “same day” for most of your stores but “next day” for a few stores, you must submit the SLA for this product as “next day”. To set store-specific pickup SLA [pickup_sla] or pickup method [pickup_method] attribute values, you'll need to submit them in your local product inventory feed.
If pickup today is available for specific stores only
Add the required pickup method [pickup_method] and pickup SLA [pickup_sla] attributes to your local product inventory feed when pickup today offering is only available at specific stores, or if specific stores offer a different pickup method or pickup SLA.
If pickup today isn’t available for a specific store or a specific product
If a product in your primary feed isn’t eligible for pickup today, set pickup method [pickup_method] to “not_supported”. If, on the other hand, the product isn’t eligible for pickup today in specific stores, set the pickup method [pickup_method] attribute to “not_supported” in the local product inventory feed.
[pickup_method] is set to “not_supported”, you can leave pickup SLA [pickup_sla] blank.[pickup_method] and pickup SLA [pickup_sla] values provided in your local inventory feed will override any pickup method or pickup SLA values in your primary feed.Add the link template, mobile link template, and ads redirect attributes to your feeds
- Add the link for merchant hosted local storefront
[link_template]attribute to your primary feed and make sure you include the{store_code}ValueTrack parameter. - The link for merchant hosted local storefront
[link_template]attribute should simply provide a link to a product’s store-specific landing page.
URL structures vary across websites. Store codes can be URL parameters, or part of the URL path. Review the examples below:
Example: {store_code} as URL parameter
itemid |
title |
price |
link_template |
ads_redirect |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 123 | 2-Person Camping Tent - Adventure Series | 249.99 USD | http://mikemart.com/123?store={store_code} |
http://mikemart.com/123?store={store_code}&trackingParameter=value |
Example: {store_code} as part of URL path
itemid |
title |
price |
link_template |
ads_redirect |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| abc | LED flashlight and carrying case | 19.99 USD |
http://acmestores.com/456/ |
http://acmestores.com/456/store/ |
-
You can also add the optional mobile link for merchant hosted local storefront
[mobile_link_template]attribute if you have separate mobile landing pages optimized for mobile devices and mobile tracking.
[ads_redirect] attribute and/or link for merchant hosted local storefront [link_template] attribute in your primary feed, you must include the {store_code} ValueTrack parameter for both.[ads_redirect] URL matches with the link for merchant hosted local storefront [link_template] URL. If the URLs don't match, the ads redirect [ads_redirect] attribute will be rejected.[link_template] attribute. If the website URL doesn’t match the registered domain, learn how to resolve this issue.Step 3: Submit your account for review
Once you've updated your feed attributes and reviewed the landing page requirements, request a review of your account:
- Sign in to your Merchant Center account.
- Click the tools icon and then select Local inventory ads setup under “Tools".
- Select the country where you wish to activate the Pickup today feature.
- In the “Pickup today” section, check the box labeled “My website allows shoppers to buy online and pick up in store”.
- In the “Example product landing page” section, provide a link to one of your product landing pages in the text box.
- Click Save.
- Google will review this link to ensure that your website’s functionality meets the landing page requirements for the pickup today with merchant hosted local storefront (full) feature.
- After Google reviews your account, you’ll receive a notification in your Merchant Center account informing you that the feature is active. If your account is found to be non-compliant, you will receive a notification in your Merchant Center account with steps to resolve.